Speaker 1: Guess what, Mango? What's up? Will? So, the coldest temperature
Speaker 1: ever recorded in Canada was in a village called Snag.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of Snag? I've never heard of
Speaker 1: it before, but it's in the Yukon and it was
Speaker 1: negative sixty three degrees celsius. And this is about negative
Speaker 1: eight one degrees fahrenheit. It's crazy cold, but it's it's
Speaker 1: actually very close to the average temperature of the surface
Speaker 1: on Mars. But you know what else, what's that? As
Speaker 1: we'll explain in a minute, this is not what we're
Speaker 1: gonna be focused on in today's episode, on some of
Speaker 1: the most fascinating places in Canada. So let's get started. Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 1: man gues Ticketer and the man on the other side
Speaker 1: of the soundproof glass sporting a jersey which he claims
Speaker 1: is signed by every single member of the nineteen Edmonton
Speaker 1: Oilers championship team is our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1: That's pretty impressive if it's true. We have to fact
Speaker 1: check that. Now this is a show we've been planning
Speaker 1: to do for a little while now, because you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of months back, we made a comment about
Speaker 1: the average temperature in Canada and how cold it is there,
Speaker 1: and we heard from several Canadians about how it's not
Speaker 1: always cold and all of Canada, and you know, obviously
Speaker 1: it's a very big place, and and frankly, we've missed
Speaker 1: an opportunity to share some good facts about Canada. Now.
Speaker 1: We don't like the stereotype, at least I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: You don't like the stereotype for me either, But but
Speaker 1: I have to say one thing about all these messages
Speaker 1: from the Canadians. They were some of the most polite
Speaker 1: letters of criticism I have ever read. It's true, and
Speaker 1: and not one but two of the letters included invitations
Speaker 1: to come visit Canada so we could experience it for ourselves.
Speaker 1: But again, we're not gonna stereotype here. I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: some real jerks in Canada. It's not any of them
Speaker 1: who wrote to us, you know, so, so in our
Speaker 1: replies we promised we would show Canada some love, and
Speaker 1: so that's what we're doing in today's episode. And do
Speaker 1: you want to tell them the exciting news yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess we should so. So, so this is just the
Speaker 1: first in a sixty five part series about Canada. Now
Speaker 1: we're not quite sure when the next sixty four parts
Speaker 1: will be but but we're pretty excited about it. So
Speaker 1: for today we we obviously won't be able to cover
Speaker 1: every fascinating thing about Canada, but we decided to each
Speaker 1: pick a few categories. And I know there were a
Speaker 1: few strange and fascinating places you wanted to talk about,
Speaker 1: and I of course claimed the animal category. But before
Speaker 1: we get to the various categories, I think we should
Speaker 1: probably start by acknowledging just how big a country Canada
Speaker 1: is and how diverse its landscape is. You want to
Speaker 1: give us a quick overview, Yeah, happy too. So so
Speaker 1: there were definitely some surprises for me in our research.
Speaker 1: But but just starting with the big facts, a couple
Speaker 1: of them that people may know, but just to make sure. So,
Speaker 1: Canada is the second largest country in the world in
Speaker 1: terms of land area. The biggest, of course, is Russia.
Speaker 1: It has the longest coastline of any country in the world,
Speaker 1: and it's the largest country that borders only one other country. Now,
Speaker 1: it has more freshwater than any country with get this,
Speaker 1: millions of lakes. That's right, millions of lakes. I had
Speaker 1: no idea. Yeah, so so, and actually, I'm not even
Speaker 1: done putting their freshwater dominance in perspective. Are you sure
Speaker 1: they're not puddles? Uh? You know, maybe there's a little
Speaker 1: language barrier here. We might have to check on that,
Speaker 1: but but still, I mean, millions, even millions of puddles
Speaker 1: is kind of impressive. But so but but this actually
Speaker 1: does put it in perspective. Here. It says one fifth
Speaker 1: of the world's freshwater is located in Canada. And and
Speaker 1: those millions of lakes, now we're talking maybe two to
Speaker 1: three million. That's more than all other countries lakes combined.
Speaker 1: So how do we not know this? Again, we're not stereotyping,
Speaker 1: but if we were, if we were going to just
Speaker 1: like dabble a little bit of stereotyping, we might say
Speaker 1: it's because they're too polite to brag about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's something I'd definitely be bragging about. But
Speaker 1: I would have thought if they were bragging about anything,
Speaker 1: it would be about trees. Yeah, and there's definitely a
Speaker 1: ton of those. Two So Canada is home to nine
Speaker 1: percent of the world's forest. And I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: you knew this, but that's almost ten percent. Actually, wait here,
Speaker 1: here is one source. This is from a Reader's Digest
Speaker 1: Canadian addition that claims they do have ten percent of
Speaker 1: the world's forest. And this is definitely the Canadian addition
Speaker 1: because they spell favorite with a U in it, and
Speaker 1: they might be a little bit bias, but I'm going
Speaker 1: with it. Well, I support that, And didn't I read
Speaker 1: that the huge percentage of that forest land is actually
Speaker 1: publicly owned. Yeah, that's right, and in fact, almost all
Speaker 1: of it. It's something like of the forest landed Canada
Speaker 1: is owned by the government and and for that reason,
Speaker 1: it's often referred to as crown land, and that is
Speaker 1: belonging to the monarch. Now, at some point in our
Speaker 1: sixty five part series, we'll talk about the relationship between
Speaker 1: the monarch and Canada. It's all kind of strange and confusing,
Speaker 1: but that's for another episode. But a decent number of
Speaker 1: these forests are part of national parks. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go back to this Reader's Digest Canada article because it's
Speaker 1: the one place I've seen the Canadian do some serious bragging.
Speaker 1: And the guy that wrote his name is Daniel Reid,
Speaker 1: and he says Canada is so big that even our
Speaker 1: parks are bigger than countries. Well, I feel like they
Speaker 1: need a marketing campaign with Canada's so big jokes man,
Speaker 1: this would be the best, need a whole book of so.
Speaker 1: So read points out that Nahini National Park Reserve in
Speaker 1: the Northwest Territories is not only incredible because if its waterfalls,
Speaker 1: but it's actually so big. It's bigger than countries like
Speaker 1: Albania and Israel. And and this is a single national
Speaker 1: park and it's not even the biggest. There's another one
Speaker 1: Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
Speaker 1: It's even bigger. In fact, it's bigger than Denmark and
Speaker 1: Switzerland's incredible. That is incredible. So do you have anything
Speaker 1: else to show just how big Canada is? Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: actually got one more. And so so, Canada's home to
Speaker 1: about a quarter of the world's wetlands. And this is
Speaker 1: another one that that surprised me. So we're talking over
Speaker 1: a million square kilometers of wetlands. And according to Canadian
Speaker 1: Geographic quote, these wetlands helped moderate river flows and cleans
Speaker 1: polluted water and support a complex web of species, from
Speaker 1: microscopic zill plankton to migratory sea birds to large mammals
Speaker 1: like moose and caribou. They also store massive amounts of
Speaker 1: carbon now, particularly the boreal peatlands, and at a minimum,
Speaker 1: the peatland store a hundred and forty seven billion tons
Speaker 1: of carbons. This is the equivalent to seven hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty six years worth of Canada's industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaker 1: So it's definitely in Canada's best interest to see those
Speaker 1: areas protected. Yeah, so, once again something I did not know.
Speaker 1: But speaking of all the interesting species, can I actually
Speaker 1: talk about one of the categories we mentioned earlier? Animals
Speaker 1: because it just seems like the right time. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: definitely does, all right, go for it. Well, it's definitely
Speaker 1: no easy task to decide on which ones to talk about,
Speaker 1: because there are obviously a ton of interesting animals in Canada.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you've heard, but Canada is
Speaker 1: a big place. I feel like I have heard that.
Speaker 1: But I decided to focus on three that I really
Speaker 1: want to go see at some point, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to start with another thing that Canada is the king of,
Speaker 1: and that's pull slar bears. Well this, I hope this
Speaker 1: is impressive as my ten per cent of the world. Fact, actually,
Speaker 1: it's even better because two thirds of the world's polar
Speaker 1: bears are in Canada. No way, that's crazy. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about roughly sixteen thousand polar bears and Churchill, Manitoba
Speaker 1: is known as the polar bear capital of the world.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a pretty big claim. So why why
Speaker 1: is that? I mean, maybe that's a dumb question. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing there are a bunch of polar bears there. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: at least for part of the year, and that's because
Speaker 1: it's on the western shore of the Hudson Bay where
Speaker 1: they gather each year to hunt seals once the bay freezes,
Speaker 1: and you'll find thousands of tourists visiting Churchill each year
Speaker 1: to see these massive bears in their natural habitat. This
Speaker 1: is in a really remote town with no real roads
Speaker 1: going to it, and you can only get there by
Speaker 1: plane or the Winnipeg Churchill rail line. Only about people
Speaker 1: actually live in the town. But you're talking about this town,
Speaker 1: so the polar bears actually come into the town itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's actually becoming a little bit of a problem because
Speaker 1: of warming temperatures, which make it harder for polar bears
Speaker 1: to hunt seals, you know, due to less ice cover.
Speaker 1: More bears have been venturing in town in recent years,
Speaker 1: and about five of the bears are pretty close to
Speaker 1: the town. Wow, So is I mean, is there anything
Speaker 1: they can do about this? So obviously global warming and
Speaker 1: roaming bears in your town aren't that funny. But I
Speaker 1: have to admit it's kind of funny to read about
Speaker 1: one of their solutions, and that's the fact that they
Speaker 1: have these polar bear jails there. Really. Yeah, so residents
Speaker 1: can call a twenty four hour hotline when they see
Speaker 1: a bear wandering around town, and any bear that they
Speaker 1: can't successfully scare off is then captured and taken to
Speaker 1: this polar bear holding facility. It's held there until it
Speaker 1: can be airlifted north and return to the wild. And
Speaker 1: last year, fifty three bears spent some time in the Slammer.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. So there's a twenty four hour hot line
Speaker 1: about this that that that sounds almost as important as
Speaker 1: our twenty four hour hotline, I guess. Actually for the record, listeners,
Speaker 1: if you want to call and tell us about your
Speaker 1: bear sightings. In addition to some great facts, you can
Speaker 1: also leave us a message on our seven fact hot
Speaker 1: line one eight four four pt genius. So so so
Speaker 1: that they built this jail for the bears originally, well
Speaker 1: it was originally this military aircraft hanger, but there was
Speaker 1: converted into this polar bear holding facility in n and
Speaker 1: since opening, it's actually held over two thousand polar bears. Wow,
Speaker 1: that does seem like a really cool thing to see.
Speaker 1: And and even the travel by train there, like you
Speaker 1: mentioned that that probably takes a while to get there,
Speaker 1: but it seems like it makes the experience that much cooler. Alright, So,
Speaker 1: so what you got next? Alright, so that this one
Speaker 1: is very different. We're gonna go from the largest gathering
Speaker 1: of polar bears to possibly the largest gathering of snakes
Speaker 1: in the world. I'm talking about the snake dens in Manitoba,
Speaker 1: where tens of thousands of red gardeners snakes congregate to
Speaker 1: do their mating thing after spending all winter in their dens.
Speaker 1: This crazy ritual happens for a few weeks in late
Speaker 1: April or early May, depending on the weather. The mails
Speaker 1: come out first and just wait on the females. And
Speaker 1: here's how it was described in an article by Joanna
Speaker 1: Klein in the New York Times last year. Quote, in
Speaker 1: this sea of snakes, a female isn't easy to find,
Speaker 1: even though she three or four times bigger. At times,
Speaker 1: the ratio of males to females is ten to one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So a female secretes pheromones from her skin, luring dozens
Speaker 1: to hundreds of males that try to quarter by rubbing
Speaker 1: their chins along her back and flicking their tongues. She
Speaker 1: ultimately decides when she's ready to mate by a mysterious
Speaker 1: mechanism called cryptic female choice, and the closest male wins
Speaker 1: and leaves a stinky plug insider that tells others to
Speaker 1: back off. She can wait a couple of days for
Speaker 1: the plug to dissolve and mate with another snake, or
Speaker 1: she can slither off into the swamps to feed and
Speaker 1: give live births to her babies. In August ten thousand
Speaker 1: to one. I mean, that is crazy, That is pretty intense.
Speaker 1: But but I can imagine it'd be tough for a
Speaker 1: lot of people to watch this, even if people think
Speaker 1: they want to go watch this. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna act off and pretend that I'm not one
Speaker 1: of those people. So I want to go see this place. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I've got one more on the animal front, and
Speaker 1: this one's pretty simple. One of these days, I want
Speaker 1: to get up to the Wood Buffalo National Park that
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier. It's in Alberta, and it's home to
Speaker 1: the world's largest beaver dam, which is so big. It
Speaker 1: was first spotted by his satellite photos about a decade ago,
Speaker 1: and it's over eight hundred fifty meters long. That's huge.
Speaker 1: I do have to admit all this metric system talk
Speaker 1: is making me a little bit dizzy. But but I
Speaker 1: want to see this thing too. And and these are
Speaker 1: some awesome animals, Maga. So you've talked about polar bears, snakes,
Speaker 1: and the beaver dam. I want to see all of
Speaker 1: these things. Now I'm ready to jump with my own list.
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break to Mango. Today,
Speaker 1: we've got an incredibly special guest on the program, asked
Speaker 1: for not Chris Hadfield. Now, now Chris has had so
Speaker 1: many incredible things on his resume that it's honestly kind
Speaker 1: of hard to know how to introduce him. He's taken
Speaker 1: three trips into space. He's the first Canadian to walk
Speaker 1: in space, first Canadian commander of the International Space Station.
Speaker 1: And if you somehow missed his incredible YouTube videos from space,
Speaker 1: you definitely should pause this and go watch his ted
Speaker 1: talk about going blind in space and then everything else
Speaker 1: from there, because it's all so wonderful. But Chris, welcome
Speaker 1: to part time genius. It is my pleasure to be
Speaker 1: joining YouTube. Gents, thanks very much. So we know you've
Speaker 1: had a ton of incredible adventures, including things like escorting
Speaker 1: Soviet bombers out of Canadian airspace and living in a
Speaker 1: research vessel in the bottom of the ocean. But as
Speaker 1: a kid growing up in Canada, knowing you wanted to
Speaker 1: get to space, how do you figure out that career
Speaker 1: roadmap to you know, get to space three times? Gosh?
Speaker 1: There there there was no roadmap at the time for
Speaker 1: a Canadian um. We didn't have a space agency. We
Speaker 1: had one satellite up called Elouette, which was looking at
Speaker 1: the ionosphere in northern lights, but there were no Canadian
Speaker 1: I mean at the time, I chose the only astronauts
Speaker 1: in the world where the Soviets with Euryga garn and
Speaker 1: Alecta leon Us and then the Americans with John Glenn
Speaker 1: and Al Sheppard and company. So, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: do I become a Soviet? Do I become an American?
Speaker 1: What you know, what do you do? And so I
Speaker 1: it's like a roadmap with no map and no roads.
Speaker 1: But I just reminded myself, even as a nine year old,
Speaker 1: that for Yuri Gagarin and and Neil Armstrong, astronauts didn't
Speaker 1: even exist when those guys were born, and yet somehow
Speaker 1: they had, they had turned themselves into somebody who could
Speaker 1: be trusted to fly a spaceship. And I figured, that's
Speaker 1: the map I'm going to follow. I'm gonna try and
Speaker 1: just change who I am into someone who someday may
Speaker 1: hand me the keys to a spaceship. And and amazingly
Speaker 1: enough that happened, and as you say, I flew in
Speaker 1: space three times and ended up commanding the International Space Station.
Speaker 1: You know, one of my favorite parts of your videos
Speaker 1: was seeing you do these mundane things in space, like
Speaker 1: you know, brushing your teeth and how it really isn't
Speaker 1: that different, but but clipping your toenails is completely different.
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think is the hardest common
Speaker 1: thing to a just two when you're in space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of the mundane stuff is so hard up there,
Speaker 1: and some things that are hard on Earth just become
Speaker 1: dead easy. Like of course you can fly around, not
Speaker 1: even fly. You can move around the spaceship as if
Speaker 1: you had a superpower, as if you were I don't know,
Speaker 1: one of the X men. You can just magically move
Speaker 1: with no effort, and and that's different than being on Earth.
Speaker 1: But we have to exercise to keep her body strong
Speaker 1: up there, and in order to use some of the
Speaker 1: exercise equipment, it's best to wear running shoes, like if
Speaker 1: you're if you're using the resistive exercise equipment, you want
Speaker 1: the foot support. Trying to put on a pair of
Speaker 1: running shoes is really hard without gravity. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like it would be, but if you think about it,
Speaker 1: none of you put your shoes on while balancing on
Speaker 1: one foot. You always sort of plumped down, and then
Speaker 1: you have the stability of gravity holding your butt still.
Speaker 1: And then you have because you have two hands and
Speaker 1: one foot busy, well, if you're waitless, as soon as
Speaker 1: you tie up both hands and one foot, basically there's
Speaker 1: nothing to hold you in place anymore. You can't still
Speaker 1: with the toes of one foot, And every every single
Speaker 1: time I would, I would float one shoe next to
Speaker 1: me in weightlessness, and then I would get busy, sort
Speaker 1: of gently tumbling around doing up the one shoe. But
Speaker 1: every single time, by the time I turned around, I
Speaker 1: had rotated to some whole new orientation and the other
Speaker 1: shoe was gone every time. So so so, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the simple stuff becomes suddenly hard and some of the
Speaker 1: real hard things become easy. That's amazing. Um. So, one
Speaker 1: of the things I feel like I heard you say
Speaker 1: was that when you were traveling in the space, that
Speaker 1: there were sunsets of sunrises every minutes. But I was curious,
Speaker 1: what's the most spectacular parts of Earth that you remember
Speaker 1: seeing from space? Yeah, you go around the world in
Speaker 1: ninety two minutes, so depending on the angle between you
Speaker 1: the Earth and the sun, um, it might be crisply
Speaker 1: every forty six minutes you get a sunrise, or or
Speaker 1: you may be on sort of the oblique and then
Speaker 1: you get along a longer, slower diagonal version of it.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, one of the most beautiful things
Speaker 1: I ever saw was something that you can hardly ever
Speaker 1: see from Earth. And even hardly ever see from the spaceship,
Speaker 1: and that is these ethereal super high altitude clouds that
Speaker 1: are way up in the thermosphere where it's just very
Speaker 1: very few ice crystals, way way up above the Earth,
Speaker 1: almost up to the altitude of the spaceship. And if
Speaker 1: you get your angle just right where the sun is
Speaker 1: still on the other side of the world, but the
Speaker 1: sunrise rays are just touching the upper part of the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: suddenly it looks like the Earth is encased in like
Speaker 1: like a ghost surf. There's this this blue rolling curves
Speaker 1: of waves way up around the world, and and it's
Speaker 1: unbelievable to look at. We call them not to loosen clouds,
Speaker 1: not to loosen like glowing in the dark clouds. But
Speaker 1: I only saw them for a couple of minutes total
Speaker 1: in in my three space flights. And I grabbed the
Speaker 1: camera and I was thinking, no way, any of these
Speaker 1: pictures are going to turn out, but this is too
Speaker 1: rare to miss. And I took a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: pictures of them and just just staggered by the by
Speaker 1: the transient, um delicate beauty of it. But um, the
Speaker 1: pictures did turn out and In fact, they're pretty scientifically
Speaker 1: interesting because it teaches us about the upper reaches of
Speaker 1: the atmosphere and also about the status of the climate
Speaker 1: itself because it's one more way to measure changes in
Speaker 1: in gaseous and water content and the atmosphere. So a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing but also kind of a technically interesting thing
Speaker 1: and something the only moment I've seen it in my
Speaker 1: whole life. Wow. Now, now, now speaking of sight or
Speaker 1: or lack of you know, I know you talk about
Speaker 1: in your Ted talk going blind in space, but but
Speaker 1: could you just touch on that experience here. Sure, I've
Speaker 1: done two spacewalks where you put on the big white
Speaker 1: suits and go outside the spaceship and we call it
Speaker 1: a suit, like a space walking suit or an outfit.
Speaker 1: But but in truth, um, that space suit is really
Speaker 1: just a one person spaceship, is what it is. It's
Speaker 1: a completely self contained little spaceship. It even has a
Speaker 1: jet pack on it. It's got its own thrust or
Speaker 1: system on it. And since it's uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: only thing you're attached to the space station with is
Speaker 1: like a little metal clothesline just to teach from floating away.
Speaker 1: So um, that system it has to purify its own
Speaker 1: air has to have an oxygen supply, power, cooling, radio, everything,
Speaker 1: and mine had some contamination in it that we weren't expecting.
Speaker 1: And on the way the contamination, let let itself be known,
Speaker 1: was it got in my left eye. And you can't
Speaker 1: touch your face, of course, you're inside a big helmet.
Speaker 1: So I suddenly had some nasty, really aggravating UM stuff
Speaker 1: in my eye. And eye does what and E does
Speaker 1: you know? It's slam shut. It hurt and it started
Speaker 1: tearing up, and I couldn't do anything about it. But
Speaker 1: because there's no gravity, the tears don't go anywhere, they
Speaker 1: don't fall, they don't drain down your face like they're
Speaker 1: supposed to. They just sit there as a ball of
Speaker 1: contaminated liquid getting slightly ever bigger on your eye. And
Speaker 1: the unfortunate consequence of that is, as soon as that
Speaker 1: ball of contaminated tear it's big enough, it crosses the
Speaker 1: bridge of your nose into your other eye, sort of
Speaker 1: against my my will and out of my control, And
Speaker 1: so then I was blinded in both eyes. And then
Speaker 1: it's a matter of how do you react? You know,
Speaker 1: you're outside the spaceship holding on um whereas sight is
Speaker 1: really important for safety, and now suddenly you're struck blind,
Speaker 1: uh or at least as blind. Imagine if you were
Speaker 1: lying in your back and someone just kept dripping a
Speaker 1: really harsh shampoo into your eyes so that every you know,
Speaker 1: you just couldn't hold your eyes o, but everything was
Speaker 1: all blurred and your eyeballs hurt when you opened them.
Speaker 1: That's what I felt like. So I talked to Houston
Speaker 1: and and I was outside with one other astronaut, a
Speaker 1: guy named Scott Parazynski, and we talked about it. Of course,
Speaker 1: we've practiced one of us being incapacitated. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not like something that could never happen. We even had
Speaker 1: procedures for incapacitated crew rescues. So we don't want to
Speaker 1: do that because that means the whole spacewalk is stopped,
Speaker 1: and you're not going to get to all the work done,
Speaker 1: and there's going to be all sorts of people are
Speaker 1: going to be all excited about it. But m Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I had worked in mission control for twenty five Shuttle flights.
Speaker 1: I knew everybody there. They trusted me. We talked about it,
Speaker 1: and I just opened the valve on the side of
Speaker 1: my suit, a little purge valve up by my left
Speaker 1: ear that that allowed the contaminated atmosphere inside my suit
Speaker 1: to squirt out into space. And there's enough spare oxygen
Speaker 1: in a in a high pressure tank down by my
Speaker 1: kidneys that it it could feed the leak for a while.
Speaker 1: And by doing that, and by continuing to tear up
Speaker 1: and cry and and have my tears evaporate, it diluted
Speaker 1: the contaminant enough so that eventually, sort of like when
Speaker 1: you rinse your eyes after they've been irritated by something,
Speaker 1: I could start to see again, and then I could
Speaker 1: get back to work and finish the whole spacewalk. But
Speaker 1: it was a pretty unusual half hour of my life
Speaker 1: to be blind during. Yeah, I can imagine more more
Speaker 1: than a little terrifying. Wow, that's interesting. Did you have
Speaker 1: any profound realizations that you came away with from your
Speaker 1: travel to space or any changes in your perspective? Well,
Speaker 1: profound is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think the twenty one years that I served as
Speaker 1: an astronaut and and worked and studied and supported other
Speaker 1: astronauts and took care of their families and took care
Speaker 1: of their families after the Columbia accidents and UH, and
Speaker 1: then my own years and years of preparation, and as
Speaker 1: you mentioned in the intro, doing survival training in the
Speaker 1: deserts and Arctic and mountains of the world, and then
Speaker 1: living and taking command of a crew of people living
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the ocean. All of those things
Speaker 1: changed who I was to some degree and increased my
Speaker 1: ability to be successful as an astronaut. But I think
Speaker 1: also maybe changed my perspective on the world a little.
Speaker 1: When you combine that with the reality of going around
Speaker 1: the world sixteen times a day and seeing everywhere, so
Speaker 1: that you become intimately familiar with every place on the planet,
Speaker 1: and the and the immense age of the planet, and
Speaker 1: the transient shared nature of what it is to be
Speaker 1: a human being alive on this planet. I think it
Speaker 1: just gave me a clearer and less filtered perspective on
Speaker 1: the world, allowed me to draw my own conclusions. And
Speaker 1: and whether that's profound or not, it's a perception that
Speaker 1: I've tried to share, you know, through writing books and
Speaker 1: playing music and um and speaking all around the world,
Speaker 1: and threw all of those things to try and let
Speaker 1: people see a little bit of that new perspective that
Speaker 1: our technology and in mentiveness has given us. M H. Now, Chris,
Speaker 1: I can't remember if we told you before the interview
Speaker 1: that the name of the studio we actually record in
Speaker 1: is Bowie and it, uh, you know, made me think
Speaker 1: that the Space Oddity video you did was just amazing.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious if you know if Bowie ever got
Speaker 1: to see your cover. Bowie described that cover as the
Speaker 1: most poignant version of the song ever done. Oh wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had to give us permission in order to do it.
Speaker 1: You can't just cover somebody else's song and release it,
Speaker 1: of course. And um, and he wrote that song when
Speaker 1: he was nineteen, you know, just turning twenty and and
Speaker 1: he he always dreamed of flying in space. It was
Speaker 1: a constant undercurrent, so many of the personas that he adopted,
Speaker 1: and so much of his artistic creation with Starman and
Speaker 1: Mars and all the rest of it. And so uh
Speaker 1: for him to see that creation of his when he
Speaker 1: was just a late adolescent performed in a place he
Speaker 1: always dreamed of going, was to some degree like a
Speaker 1: dream come true for him. He loved it. And I
Speaker 1: play with his bands sometimes now that we do the
Speaker 1: celebrating Bowie tour. I played with him in New York
Speaker 1: earlier this year, and I'll probably play their touring again
Speaker 1: this year. The guys that loved him and toured with
Speaker 1: him over the decades. Um. So, yeah, I have huge
Speaker 1: respect for Bowie and and I'm delighted that that's something
Speaker 1: that I did on Orbit. Um, you know, put a
Speaker 1: smile on his face in the last couple of years
Speaker 1: of his life. That's incredible. And since the episode we're
Speaker 1: doing is on Canada, could you just tell us one
Speaker 1: place in Canada that's maybe secret or a little less known,
Speaker 1: that you think is beautiful and you think everyone should
Speaker 1: know about. Yeah, just a little over year ago, I
Speaker 1: was on an icebreaker um way up in Canada's north
Speaker 1: and of course most of Canada is north, and a
Speaker 1: large part of it is just so sparsely inhabited by people.
Speaker 1: And on board this icebreaker, we were If you take
Speaker 1: a globe of the world and you look at that
Speaker 1: long archipelago of Canada that goes almost right to the
Speaker 1: very north pole, the northern part of that is elsbre Island,
Speaker 1: and it's full of life, just not people, full of
Speaker 1: of uh. Rabbits and fox and wolves and musk ox
Speaker 1: and a bunch of different types of birds and polar
Speaker 1: bears and seals, and it's it's thriving and teeming with
Speaker 1: life and ancients and patient and silent and beautiful, and
Speaker 1: it defines a large part of Canada, and it's something
Speaker 1: that even most Canadians never get a chance to see.
Speaker 1: So I brought a team of of social media people
Speaker 1: with me, about ten or eleven that that could share
Speaker 1: the experience, and I think we should there with the
Speaker 1: talies like twenty million people that got to have a
Speaker 1: good look at that part of the world but otherwise
Speaker 1: might never even realize just how it exists and what
Speaker 1: it looks like. And to me, that huge part of
Speaker 1: our planet, so much of which is within Canada, which
Speaker 1: is so important to the health and and uh an
Speaker 1: ecology of the planet. To me, that's maybe the most
Speaker 1: secret but important part of the country. Wow, we'll definitely
Speaker 1: have to add that to the tour we're putting together
Speaker 1: here now. For all of our listeners, I hope you'll
Speaker 1: pick up a copy of Chris's best selling book, An
Speaker 1: Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth and check out his
Speaker 1: incredible YouTube channel. You definitely won't be disappointed. But Chris Hatfield,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much. It's a pleasure pleasure to h to
Speaker 1: talk with you both. It's an amazing planet and I'm
Speaker 1: constantly looking for ways to understand it better and then
Speaker 1: share my version of understanding with as many people as possible.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius. Now, before the break,
Speaker 1: Mango is telling us about his plans to see polar
Speaker 1: bears and snakes and beavers all on his next trip
Speaker 1: to Canada. That's right, I can't wait. But now that
Speaker 1: you're trying to talk about a few places, I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell us about some of the unusual spots
Speaker 1: you'd like to check out. Yeah, So from my first spot,
Speaker 1: I'm going to head way up north, and in fact,
Speaker 1: it's the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world. It's
Speaker 1: a place called Alert and it's a Canadian Forces station
Speaker 1: that opened a little more than sixty years ago and
Speaker 1: only about eighty people live there now, though you know
Speaker 1: as many as three hundred or so lived there during
Speaker 1: the Cold War. So what exactly is it? Well, it's
Speaker 1: it's a place that serves several purposes. It's it's been
Speaker 1: a signals intelligence listening post, that's been a weather station,
Speaker 1: a place to monitor climate change, and a base for
Speaker 1: other polar research. But it's a pretty strange place. And
Speaker 1: it's actually so close to the North Pole that it's
Speaker 1: unable to connect with communications satellites. And the motto of
Speaker 1: Alert is beyond the Inuit land. But I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: makes for some pretty dark winners. Yeah, and some well
Speaker 1: lit summers, But in fact, about four months out of
Speaker 1: the year, Alert is in complete darkness. There was a
Speaker 1: story in the National Post that put it this way.
Speaker 1: The seventy nine Canadians who inhabit the northernmost community on
Speaker 1: Earth last saw daylight on October fourteenth at twelve thirty pm.
Speaker 1: The sun will next crest the horizon here at ten
Speaker 1: forty one am on February. So I think I might
Speaker 1: hold off visiting since they've just entered that period of darkness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like I said, wait wait until the summer months
Speaker 1: and you'll get about four months of twenty four seven daylight.
Speaker 1: But there's actually a pretty funny story about Canadian Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Trudeau when he made his first visit to Alert
Speaker 1: as a kid. This was when his father, Pierre was
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, and Trudeau shared this story at the memorial
Speaker 1: service for his dad, and here's what he said. I
Speaker 1: was about six years old when I went on my
Speaker 1: first official trip. I was going with my father to
Speaker 1: the North Pole. One day, we were in Alert, Canada's
Speaker 1: northernmost point. I figured I was finally going to be
Speaker 1: let into the reason for the existence of this high
Speaker 1: security Arctic base. I was exactly right. We drove slowly
Speaker 1: through and passed the buildings, all of them very gray
Speaker 1: and windy, and we rounded a corner and came upon
Speaker 1: a red one. So we stopped. I got out of
Speaker 1: the jeep and started to crunch across the snow bank,
Speaker 1: boosted up to the window, rubbed my sleeve across the
Speaker 1: frosty glass to see inside, and as my eyes adjusted
Speaker 1: to the gloom, I saw a figure hunched over one
Speaker 1: of the many work tables that seemed very cluttered. He
Speaker 1: was wearing a red suit with a furry white trump
Speaker 1: And that's when I understood just how powerful and wonderful
Speaker 1: my father was. By the way, that that was Santa
Speaker 1: he was talking about. In case you didn't understand that. So,
Speaker 1: you know, so while Alert has primarily been this spot
Speaker 1: for the Canadian military to try and keep a US
Speaker 1: in on what Putin and his government are up to,
Speaker 1: it's also apparently a place where Santa may hang out sometime.
Speaker 1: And in fact, Trudeau and others have pointed out, you
Speaker 1: can tell Santa is Canadian because he wears red and white,
Speaker 1: or he could be Japanese. But where's your next Alright,
Speaker 1: So so we're gonna come way south of Alert to
Speaker 1: a farm near Whitby, Ontario, and we're gonna go back
Speaker 1: in time a little bit for this visit. But we're
Speaker 1: talking about World War two in that time frame. There
Speaker 1: was a special training school for intelligence agents that was
Speaker 1: developed there. It was officially called STS one oh three,
Speaker 1: and the STS stands for Special Training School, but it
Speaker 1: was usually just referred to as Camp X. Now, this
Speaker 1: was not just the school for Canadian intelligence agents from
Speaker 1: the Office of Strategic Services in the US who would
Speaker 1: go on to found the CIA trained their spies from
Speaker 1: the British Intelligence Service learned there. Several others were training
Speaker 1: in this spot, and so that this all happened on
Speaker 1: a farm, it was just the strange piece of farmland
Speaker 1: and in a pretty sparsely populated area near the Lake
Speaker 1: Ontario shore, and a report from Radio Canada International explained,
Speaker 1: quote it was a good place to practice a variety
Speaker 1: of skills such as blowing up railway lines, firearms, parachute drops,
Speaker 1: hand to hand combat and so on, all away from
Speaker 1: prying eyes and ears. And it goes on to explain
Speaker 1: during the war it trained about five hundred agents, approximately
Speaker 1: half of which were sent behind enemy lines in Europe
Speaker 1: and Asia to cause damage and disruption and or spread
Speaker 1: disinformation while gathering information useful to the Allied war effort.
Speaker 1: That's pretty fascinating. So how long did this last? Well,
Speaker 1: it only lasted a few years, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: so many were trained there, and after fewer Americans were
Speaker 1: sent to train, their CAMPEX started getting recruits from Central
Speaker 1: and South America. And these people were going there because
Speaker 1: they worked for British owned companies and they were there
Speaker 1: to learn counter sabotage techniques to protect against Nazi subversion.
Speaker 1: Then there were other European immigrants who went there to train,
Speaker 1: but eventually the school was closed. I think it was
Speaker 1: in the nineteen so I know you have one more
Speaker 1: place on your strange list, what you got for us?
Speaker 1: All right? So this one is very different. It's actually
Speaker 1: a haunted prison hotel. Yeah, that definitely sounds different. It is.
Speaker 1: And and so this prison, originally called the Carlton County Jail,
Speaker 1: was open in the eighteen sixties and it was a
Speaker 1: really brutal prison. So several of Ottawa's most notorious criminals
Speaker 1: ended up there, and the conditions were pretty terrible. There
Speaker 1: were multiple executions carried out there, and and the jail
Speaker 1: was closed in the early seventies really because of just
Speaker 1: how bad the conditions were there. But eventually it was
Speaker 1: purchased by Hostling International because what else to do with
Speaker 1: this old rundown and horrible jail then turn it into
Speaker 1: a hostel, and it was reopened as the Ottawa Jail
Speaker 1: Hostile Wait says, you just stay inside the old prison. Yeah, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm pulling this off right now. And and it's
Speaker 1: it's fine to go to the website and see Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Ottawa Jail Hostile Book Your stay. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: doesn't make you want to stay there, and the pictures
Speaker 1: look really creepy, but know, for a one night experience
Speaker 1: it would definitely be memorable at the very least, and
Speaker 1: you can take a ghost tour, go to the top
Speaker 1: floor where you can see where death Row was and
Speaker 1: all of this before you retire to yourself for the night.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is so morbid, and I think it
Speaker 1: would be interesting to visit, but I'm not quite sure
Speaker 1: i'd want to spend the night. Yeah. In fact, I
Speaker 1: think this is a good time for me to transition
Speaker 1: back to the world of nature and finish our tour
Speaker 1: with three more natural locations. I think that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea, all right, So so what do you got first? Well,
Speaker 1: you know how we talked about the millions of lakes
Speaker 1: in Canada. One of them happens to be Canada's own
Speaker 1: Dead Sea. You mean, like the dead sea, dead sea,
Speaker 1: like the one where you can float so easily in exactly. So,
Speaker 1: if you're in North America, why travel so many thousands
Speaker 1: of miles to get to the Dead Sea when you
Speaker 1: could just head up to Saskatchewan. Actually that's my philosophy.
Speaker 1: I say that about every day. Why go to New
Speaker 1: York when you could just go to Saskatchewan. I think
Speaker 1: that's right. But what's amazing about it is the crazy
Speaker 1: high salinity of this lake, which is called Little Manitou Lake.
Speaker 1: The water of the lake is three to four times
Speaker 1: saltier than the ocean. I mean, the idea of kicking
Speaker 1: back and relaxing and floating and reading a book in
Speaker 1: the water, it all sounds pretty great to me, especially
Speaker 1: after thinking about spending a night in that old prison. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so Saskatchewan is the province that this is the one
Speaker 1: just above Montana and North Dakota. Right, Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting how even many Canadians are unaware of
Speaker 1: this dead sea equivalent. I mean, it does seem like
Speaker 1: a really interesting place to visit. Yeah, and it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful area and there are also a lot of hot
Speaker 1: springs there, so that's a bonus definitely. All right, So, um,
Speaker 1: I think you have another spot. So what's next? Well,
Speaker 1: sticking with the water theme, I I know you're a
Speaker 1: big fan of waterfalls, so it's probably worth a visit
Speaker 1: to what some call the City of Waterfalls in Hamilton, Ontario,
Speaker 1: where they're over a hundred thirty falls in the area
Speaker 1: and they're all part of the Niagara Escarpment. Hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty falls. But wait a minute, first, of all, what
Speaker 1: the heck is an escarpment? And second, so you said
Speaker 1: niagaras and Niagara Falls. Yeah, so, and escarpment is pretty
Speaker 1: much a geological ridge that's separates two areas of different elevations.
Speaker 1: And the Niagara Escarpment, which is in fact named for
Speaker 1: Niagara Falls, is near the eastern end it. It runs
Speaker 1: a little over six hundred miles from I believe, like Rochester,
Speaker 1: through the Great Lakes and then into Illinois. I thought
Speaker 1: we're talking about Canada here, man, you're naming place to us,
Speaker 1: and we are because along the way it travels through
Speaker 1: part of Ontario, and specifically Hamilton, Ontario, where where those
Speaker 1: hundred thirty falls are located. There's so many beautiful falls.
Speaker 1: They're like ones with heavy rushing waters, ones with big drops,
Speaker 1: and ones that just kind of roll across a series
Speaker 1: of falls. That sounds awesome. I really want to visit
Speaker 1: this place as much as any place we've talked about today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And of course none of the individual falls in Hamiltons
Speaker 1: are nearly as big as Niagara, but just seeing that
Speaker 1: many falls in such a small area is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: And there's several more falls and towns around the area.
Speaker 1: It's definitely worth a visit. Yeah, I'm pretty serious about
Speaker 1: getting there at some point. All right, So you've got
Speaker 1: I think one more natural area, is that right? So
Speaker 1: I'm going to finish with going to this region of
Speaker 1: Canada where there's less gravity, less gray What does that mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So for several decades, scientists have been trying to find
Speaker 1: out why gravity seems to be missing in the Hudson
Speaker 1: Bay region and actually in several areas of Canada, but
Speaker 1: it's more significant in the Hudson Bay area. What does
Speaker 1: that mean? It's missing gravity? And how did they figure
Speaker 1: this out? Well, then they gotta figured it out because
Speaker 1: there are a couple of contributing factors. But before explaining that,
Speaker 1: I should know a couple of things. So the first
Speaker 1: is just a refresher on what creates gravity. As you
Speaker 1: may remember from science class, gravity is directly proportional to mass,
Speaker 1: So the greater the mass, the greater the gravity, and
Speaker 1: vice versa. And the second thing is that gravity is
Speaker 1: not equal everywhere on Earth. I have to admit I
Speaker 1: did not know that. It's because we think of the
Speaker 1: Earth as being this ball, and the mass of the
Speaker 1: Earth is not equally distributed like the Earth bulges near
Speaker 1: the quitter and then flattens out, you know, as you
Speaker 1: move towards the polls. All right, that makes sense, got it?
Speaker 1: So let me go to the theories. The first has
Speaker 1: to do with the process of convection in the Earth's mantle,
Speaker 1: which is that layer of magma and is extremely hot. Well,
Speaker 1: magma's in constant motion, and it actually pulls the continental
Speaker 1: plates down and in doing so, it decreases the mass
Speaker 1: in that area. And then the second theory has to
Speaker 1: do with this massive ice sheet that used to cover
Speaker 1: much of present day Canada, but one of its thickest
Speaker 1: areas was over Hudson Bay. This was a really heavy
Speaker 1: ice sheet and in these thicker areas, basically it left
Speaker 1: this big indentation in the Earth and the result was
Speaker 1: similar to the first theory, and that it decreased the
Speaker 1: mass in that area. And so do do scientists think
Speaker 1: one of these is accurate? Now? Well, they actually believe
Speaker 1: that both are accurate and both contributed to the missing gravity.
Speaker 1: All right, So if you were to go visit this,
Speaker 1: would you would you feel this difference in gravity? No?
Speaker 1: Not unless you're capable of noticing. What do we feel
Speaker 1: like to like lose a tenth of an ounce off
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty pound frame. I don't know. I'm a
Speaker 1: pretty sensitive person, Magna, but maybe you're right on this
Speaker 1: and it would still be a really cool place to
Speaker 1: is it. And yeah, I feel like we've talked about
Speaker 1: some pretty amazing places today and for those we've missed,
Speaker 1: we know we've still got sixty four more episodes in
Speaker 1: this sixty five part series, you know, to come at
Speaker 1: some point in the future. But I bet we've still
Speaker 1: got a few more to talk about because you know
Speaker 1: what time it is? Time for the PTG fact off.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll kick us off. So did you know
Speaker 1: that Canada's home to the world's first UFO landing pad?
Speaker 1: Went in nineteen sixty seven, the town of St. Paul
Speaker 1: and Alberta built this landing pad, and Canada's National Defense
Speaker 1: minister even showed up to cut the ribbon at the
Speaker 1: opening ceremony. I mean, it turns out it might have
Speaker 1: been a little bit more of a move to attract
Speaker 1: tourists as much as it was for Martians, but it's
Speaker 1: still pretty fun. I also be like, that's how welcoming
Speaker 1: Canadians are kidding. So I've got a weird one too.
Speaker 1: Did you know what Canada's universal health care system an
Speaker 1: actor key for Sutherland having common I don't, but I
Speaker 1: was actually just wondering that this morning. Well, Tommy Douglas,
Speaker 1: who was the Premier of Saskatchewan, initiated the universal healthcare
Speaker 1: idea in a big way when his province said an
Speaker 1: example for the federal government. That's because he instituted public
Speaker 1: hospital insurance. But almost as big as this accomplishment, Douglas
Speaker 1: is also the grandfather of key for Sutherland. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: you really bury the lead there. That's an important fact. Okay, alright,
Speaker 1: So the red and white Canadian flag, you know, this
Speaker 1: is the one with the big maple leaf on it.
Speaker 1: It was adopted in nineteen six, only seventy years after
Speaker 1: it was first suggested that Canada should have a national
Speaker 1: flag with a big maple leaf. So until the adoption
Speaker 1: in the sixties, Canada actually didn't have a national flag.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. So one of my favorite things to do
Speaker 1: when I travel is to try some of the favorite
Speaker 1: local drinks. But there is one drink that I cannot
Speaker 1: imagine trying, and this is in Dawson City's downtown hotel
Speaker 1: bar in Yukon, it's called the s our Toe cocktail,
Speaker 1: which is a glass of local bourbon with a mummified
Speaker 1: human toe dropped into it. Almost seventy people have had
Speaker 1: the drink and with this toe in it, but one
Speaker 1: customer almost ruined it for everyone. He actually swallowed the
Speaker 1: toe intentionally, but not to worry that they had another
Speaker 1: one ready to go. And and apparently there's now a
Speaker 1: fine for anyone who swallows the toe. Who's capable of
Speaker 1: swallowing a toe. That is all right, well, this is
Speaker 1: not that crazy of a fact. But actually I realized
Speaker 1: there was something that I forgot to mention earlier, and
Speaker 1: that's the fact that of the Canadian population lives within
Speaker 1: a hundred miles of the US border. So as huge
Speaker 1: as the country is, land wise, there are so few
Speaker 1: people per square mile once you get beyond that hundred miles.
Speaker 1: So Canada may not be called everywhere, but it is
Speaker 1: home North America's only cold sauna. It's called Sparkling Hill
Speaker 1: and it's this resort in British Columbia. It doesn't sound pleasant,
Speaker 1: but apparently flash freezing your self is good for things
Speaker 1: like arthritis and muscle pain, and several other elements, and
Speaker 1: while you're inside, you spend three minutes in a room
Speaker 1: at negative a hundred sixty six degrees fahrenheit, But just
Speaker 1: a few more minutes of that and the temperature could
Speaker 1: actually kill you. I mean, that doesn't sound like anything
Speaker 1: i'd want to try. And you know, everything else we've
Speaker 1: talked about today, I think I would at least like
Speaker 1: to visit, but but not this one. But I'm impressed
Speaker 1: you managed to bring the conversation back to freezing in Canada.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm going to give you this week's trophy.
Speaker 1: And remember, listeners, if there are facts you think we
Speaker 1: should know, email us at part Time Genius at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com or call us on our seven
Speaker 1: fact hotline one eight four four pt Genius. We can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear from all our Canadian listeners. And just
Speaker 1: before we go, I just want to say a special
Speaker 1: thanks to Chris Hadfield. He's such a hero to us,
Speaker 1: and and please go check out his new Rare Earth
Speaker 1: series on YouTube. Thanks so much, thanks again for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
Speaker 1: the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan
Speaker 1: McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme
Speaker 1: song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland
Speaker 1: does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher,
Speaker 1: with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Speaker 1: Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the
Speaker 1: show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
Speaker 1: what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you
Speaker 1: really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
Speaker 1: a good review for us. Do we do? We forget Jason?
Speaker 1: Jason who